


Tradescantia ohiensis

by youmockussir



Category: Orbiting Human Circus of the Air (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Gen, Hanahaki Disease
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23902417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youmockussir/pseuds/youmockussir
Summary: “I am the Great Recitating Platypus, and I can save you.”“Wha-”“Let me help you, Julian.”But Julian remembers the diagnosis of the disease.Removing the flowers also removes the feelings causing them. “No!” He would rather die than live without his love for one minute. “No, don’t take this away from me!” He curls his arms over his chest. “Please.”The platypus hesitates. “You are going to die if I don’t save you.”“I know.”
Relationships: Julian & The Great Recitating Platypus
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	Tradescantia ohiensis

**Author's Note:**

> CW: blood, a bit of suicidal ideation

When he was a child, Julian’s mother had a garden. It wasn’t one of those gardens he would see on the covers of home improvement magazines: no beautifully-shaped shrubbery and meticulously trimmed lawns or anything. Just him, and his mother, and whatever flowers she deemed worthy of life.

One of these flowers was the Tradescantia. His mother always referred to it by its scientific name. 

“When God gives you the gift of an ethereal name,” she would say. “You learn to use it.”

But Julian preferred it’s common name. It’s  _ ugly  _ name. He would whisper it to the flowers when he helped him mother weed. Ohio Spiderwort. Like it was a secret between just the two of them, that no one else can know.

To Julian, this was no ordinary flower, in any way that a flower could ever be ordinary. This flower was like him. It was  _ shy _ . In the morning, when only the gentle touch of a bee was awake, it showed its lovely purple flowers, opening up its most vulnerable parts of itself to be known. When the sun grew just a little too confident, overstaying its welcome, the spiderwort hid from the world, closing its leaves until every last flash of lavender was lost to the world. And, every morning like magic, the cycle began again. 

Sometimes, Julian wished that he could be like his favorite flower. The world was beautiful, but it was also mean, and scary. And besides, in the mornings his stepfather was away at the factory. What better time to come alive?

Julian learns to worship the changing of the seasons as any flower does, reaching for brightness and spreading his roots towards water. On his first day free, the last time he ran away, he breathed in the breathtaking spring breeze and felt his life begin anew. He let the rich Parisian sun hit his skin and he  _ grew.  _

He loves the Eiffel Tower, because it means he’s closer to the sun. This is literal only sometimes. Yes, he’s higher up, and like a vine he does love heights, but sometimes his sun is the broadcast ballroom at the very top of the Eiffel Tower, and he follows its schedule religiously. 

This does not mean that the sun loves him back. 

It’s true that Julian tends to mess things up. He’s clumsy, and he has trouble keeping up with the nuances of social interaction. It’s only natural that he misses an important instruction or someone’s bad mood once in a blue moon, and this inevitably causes trouble for him. 

* * *

The first time Julian realizes something might be wrong, he is hiding behind some curtains backstage. He can’t see much, but he can hear what was happening on stage (at least, most of it). 

“And now, we are treated to a special guest!” he hears Host John Cameron announce, and his toes wiggle in excitement. 

“Please welcome Romika, the singing saw!”

As she sings, Julian’s heart blooms. This is  _ his  _ Romika! He had found her in his closet, and known right away that she belonged on the show. The audience agrees, entrapped by her hauntingly beautiful singing. And maybe, if they love what he wanted to show the world, they would love him too. 

He feels a tickle in his throat. He coughs. He coughs again. It’s hard to do this quietly, but he tries his best, for the sake of the show. Smothered into his palm is a damp flower petal. 

He tries to remember the last time he’d been around flowers. It certainly hasn’t been this week, since he’d spent all his time in the tower. Maybe he inhaled it without noticing? Still, while unusual, it’s not that big of a deal to Julian, and he finds himself forgetting about it completely when Leticia clocks him from behind the curtain and drags him out by the collar.

* * *

Over time the flowers show themselves to Julian, and it becomes harder to hide the flowers from Mr. Chouinard. The man has an eye for the finer things in life, and knows that the petals accumulating in the corners of the tower are not native to the area. 

“Julian!” Chouinard pulls a few lilac petals from the hinges of his office door. The janitor peers out from behind some boxes. “Yes, Mr. Chouinard?”

“Where are all zhese flowers coming from? They are making a mess, Julian!”

“Uh,” Julian lies. “I dunno.” But his lungs are nothing if not mischievous, and they choose this moment to hack out a fistful of tradescantia.

Chouinard blinks. “You should maybe zee a doctor, Julian. And clean zis up!”

* * *

Contrary to popular belief, Julian does actually get days off. This is France, after all. However, Julian doesn’t know that he gets days off, and so sneaks out of the tower early one morning, feeling rebellious, all while doing absolutely nothing wrong.

Julian also doesn’t know the technical details of French public healthcare, and so believes he can’t afford a visit to the doctor. There are perhaps consequences for running away from home and dropping out of school that Julian did not consider. 

A little lost, a little anxious, and a lot curious, he finds his way to the library, where there are a handful of clunky computers.

He types slowly, pecking one finger, one letter at a time. 

_ coughing flowers? _

This isn’t a helpful search, as most of the results are about spring allergies. He tries again.

_ flowers in lungs ? ? ? _

There is still a lot of information about seasonal pollen allergies, but when he reaches the bottom of the first page of the search results, he finds an entry in a website called “RareDiseases.org”

_ Hanahaki Disease _

He scrolls down. 

_ Hanahaki Disease is an illness where the lungs and throat will fill up with flowers, causing coughing, vocal damage, pneumonia, collapsed lung, choking, or, in severe cases, death. _

Uh oh. He keeps reading.

_ Experts disagree about whether to classify this disease as an upper respiratory disorder or an emotional disorder, due to the nature of its origins. _

_ While there has been limited scientific study on this disease (Moisanu et al. 1988), it is generally understood that Hanahaki Disease is caused by unreciprocated love.  _

What.

_ Media often depicts this as romantic love, but cases have shown it to persist in conditions of unrequited familial or platonic love as well.  _

The article goes on about the history of the illness, and certain case studies that defined the field. Julian scrolls until he finds a subsection titled “Treatment.”

_ There are two “cures” for Hanahaki Disease. The first is for the object of one’s affection to return the feelings of love. However, this is easier said than done. The second is an invasive surgery that removes the flowers by the root. This is a controversial procedure, as removing the flowers also removes the feelings causing them, and many find this unnatural and undesirable.  _

_ This disease can be extremely dangerous if- _

Something taps Julian on the shoulder, and he jolts.

“Excuse me, young man,” says the kind-eyed librarian. “I’m afraid your time slot is up.”

Julian nods, and clicks out of the browser. He’s learned all he needs to know.

* * *

Sometimes, someone finds a few flowers in a heating vent. It isn’t unusual to find flowers around the broadcast ballroom. After all, John Cameron has his fair share of admirers, and many in the audience regularly bring flowers to toss at his feet hysterically at the end of a show. Still, alive as they were, flowers didn’t tend to walk away. 

“I zhink zomeone might be ztealing your flowers, John,” Leticia teases after Pierre pulls out a handful of white rose petals from the central heating duct. 

“Eugh!” He flings his hands about, recoiling. “They’re slimy!”

And Julian, fading into the background with a mop in one hand and his heart in the other, just sweeps away the evidence. If he coughs and a few more petals are added to the pile, well, no one needs to know.

Love has always flowered from Julian. Even when the world was determined to weed him out, to pour herbicide into his roots until he was nothing but a barren skeleton of his past self, he had nothing but beauty to share. 

And then, just when he opens himself up to the possibility of being known, John Cameron invites Julian onto the stage to sing a song. Maybe it’s the sheer surprise, or the sudden warm feeling in his chest, but Julian’s throat feels clear for the first time in months. He sings, not in small part just because he  _ can  _ again, and he feels no pain.

He wakes up in a pool of bavarian cream with a throat full of cuts. He is soaked in sticky lederhosen and he’s  _ exposed _ . Of course it was too good to be true. Of course this was what he deserved. 

He runs to the stagehand’s shower, dripping pink drops of cream and blood like a brutal treasure map. He punches the wall over and over again, and hacks up a fistful of firethorns, which he stomps on until they clog up the drain.

He can’t even sing when the Narrator prompts him to try again. He opens his mouth, but only a ragged, broken squeak comes out . Julian breaks away from the ballroom, from everything he could ever find himself vulnerable to, and slams himself into his closet. He sobs until he can't. Tears drag down his face in thick clumps as his cries turn into ragged coughs. He grabs the mop bucket just in time to catch a single bloody rose. 

Oh.

This rose is the same color he has been coughing up all week, except now it’s complete. A spiky, deep green stem extends from the petals. Hm. The shallow roots have clearly been hacked off close to the tab, and Juilan knows that what remains in his lungs would just keep growing. He takes an empty wine bottle from one of the shelves and fills it with water. This flower deserves a place to belong, even if he couldn’t give it much.

He falls asleep next to the makeshift vase, wondering if the flower could grow if he planted it somewhere else.

(It couldn’t).

* * *

It’s four in the morning, and Jacques fantasizes about a shower all to himself. It is rare that the stagehand’s shower has hot water to spare. He wants to take advantage of the empty ballroom.

It’s not empty. The janitor, dull-eyed and feeble, lays on his back in one of the stalls as the water runs over him. He wears a white t-shirt and some boxers, which is a decidedly odd shower outfit.

“Kid, you’re not supposed to be in here.”

If Julian is surprised by Jacques’s appearance, he doesn’t show it. “Leave me alone, Jacques.”

“What are you doing, anyway? Can’t afford the laundromat?”

Julian says, “When I was a kid, my mother said that if you water flowers too much, they’ll drown.” And maybe it’s a cry for help but it doesn’t matter, because Jacques is hypnotized before he has the chance to hear it. Julian sits in the shower for another ten minutes before falling asleep in a puddle of muddy flower petals. When he wakes up, Jacques is gone.

* * *

Julian reaches a hand toward the polar bear. It’s shaky, and stained orange from a night of coughing up thorns. 

“Hey,” he tries to say, but it’s ragged, panicked, barely more than a hoarse whisper. “Hey, it’s okay.”

But the audience is gone, and that’s too much for John. No one can deny his flair for the dramatic, least of all John himself, and when he hurls himself at the polar bear no one is surprised. There’s no time to think, no time for hesitations. There’s only one thing the janitor can do, and he does it. Julian throws himself between the two, shoving John behind him. He won’t let anything bad happen to the show. He won’t.

There’s blood on his hands. That’s not unusual, maybe he’s okay. There’s blood on his shirt. There’s blood on his face. He’s all wet, and for one terrified moment he thinks he’s in a pool of bavarian cream again. He’s almost relieved to find the puddle to be one of his own blood.

* * *

Julian has lain in his hospital bed for five days, and he is weaker by the hour.

Maybe it’s his time. Maybe he wasn’t meant to be a person anymore. Time for him to degrade into the earth, let his veins become rivers and his bones become nutrients and his mind become nothing.

In his daze, he doesn’t notice his new visitor until it sits on the end of his bed.

“Julian,” says the platypus, and he wonders if he is dreaming. “Julian,” it says again. “You’re dying.”

The janitor scoffs. “Yeah. I got that.” He coughs weakly. “I was attacked by a polar bear.”

“No.” The platypus looks so deep into his eyes that Julian wonders if he can see into his brain. “You know what has happened to you, and it started a long time before tonight.”

Julian looks down in shame. “I know.” His voice is a whisper, at best. “It’s not their fault I’m unlovable.”

There is pity in the platypus’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Julian.”

“And now the circus is closing, and it’s all my fault.” A broken sob. “Why couldn’t I have done just this one thing right? Why do I have to screw everything up?”

“You’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve been a good man. That’s why I’ve come to you tonight.” Julian looks back up. “I am the Great Recitating Platypus, and I can save you.”

“Wha-”

“Let me help you, Julian.”

But Julian remembers the diagnosis of the disease. R _ emoving the flowers also removes the feelings causing them.  _ “No!” He would rather die than live without his love for one minute. “No, don’t take this away from me!” He curls his arms over his chest. “Please.”

The platypus hesitates. “You are going to die if I don’t save you.”

“I know.” Julian’s whole body shakes, but he’s never felt more certain of anything in his life. He repeats, “Please don’t take this away from me.”

The platypus looks him over, and sighs. “The circus is closing, Julian, and you dying won’t fix that. They need you.”

Julian scoffs. “No they don’t.” He pauses. “But they might need you.”

* * *

He’s always liked the music of the forest. He loves the swish, swish of each branch of a tree too young to know the roots from which it grew. He loves the deep bass of every worm dancing inches under the bare-footed soil. He loves the andante pace that flowers bloom and the fading tempo that they died at the conclusion of their song. 

The platypus is gone. It’s gone, and Julian is alone again, but he knows exactly what he wants. He drags himself out of the bed, rejecting its staunch unnaturally white linens. He unpluggs himself from the machines, one by one until he no longer resembles a broken puppet. Doctors and nurses rush towards him, but they can’t stop him. He is on a different timescale now. Roots sprout from the bottom of his feet and lick the sidewalk as he walks. His chest burns like yellow-rocket.

-

“Mister Platypus, I know you only cure sick and infirmed people, but… we are show-people.”

-

A moon passes before he finds a forest. This is due to the nature of urban living. He walks for miles until he reaches the end of a lonely street. Thick branches wave in the wind, and Julian waves back. He hears their call to him.

-

“And our show is dying.” 

-

He walks along a mulch trail, deeper and deeper into the darkness. He stumbles over an upturned root and plummets to the ground. He rolls over onto his back, letting the roots bleed out onto the forest floor. He isn’t as thirsty now, he thinks as the roots rummage deeper into the earth. He feels nourished. He feels fed. The roots keep digging.

-

“ I—I don’t know why you came here but, Mister Platypus--”

-

He’s having trouble remembering who he was, before this. He was a man, he thinks, and before that he was a boy. But he knows he always loved the sun, in any form he took it in. Maybe, in all of his running away from the ground towards the sky, he always knew this was where he would end up. Maybe it was for the best. 

-

“He  _ what?! _ ”

-

He’d had a name once, but he doesn’t want to remember it now. He doesn’t want a delimiter between himself and the forest. The forest doesn’t have a name, and neither does he. Not anymore.

-

“Where is he? This changes everything.”

-

It is daylight now. His brothers share the sun with him in the warm glow of flora, each branch reaching to be part of the light. They barely notice the disruption of a small group of footsteps on the pine-carpeted floor.

“Julian? Oh, mon dieu, Julian!”

The sound is familiar to him, but he is unsure of the voice, or the words. It’s lower than a bird’s song, but higher than a frog’s call, and he thinks once that the words had held meaning to him. The spongy ground bounces as a group surrounds his body.

“Please, can you help him?” Another voice, deeper, more despaired. “I’ll do anything. Please.”

He knows these voices. He knows who he is. He feels his lungs pushing out organic material, out of his back, his chest, his feet. He breathes again.

“I don’t need to,” said the platypus. “You have saved him yourself.”

Julian opens his eyes. He is surrounded by the people who love him, and he stands up to pull them all into a warm embrace. 

Where he had fallen, a person-sized patch of Ohio Spiderwort opens up to the possibility of light.

**Author's Note:**

> We get it, Emily, you worked on a prairie for three months, five years ago and you still can’t shut up about native prairie flowers. Thanks Morton Arboretum for that, and also for my long-lived fear of lyme disease. (I know ohio spiderwort isn't native to Paris but just like. let me have this one.)


End file.
